Pascal's Wager Revisited

[abaris]

The problem of how we came to be is irrelevant for the very different problem of what and who we are.

No, my friend. There's no dodging this question. And it is highly relevant for what and who we are.

Since you didn't answer my original question some pages ago, I pose it again: Are you totally ignorant of cognitive science experiments conducted on animals? You seem to have a very narrow horizon to talk about "human glory", which is - as you yourself said - our god given right to rule over everything else. Which, in my book, is quite the same as white supremacism as far as being uninformed is concerned.

[Chas]

The problem of how we came to be is irrelevant for the very different problem of what and who we are.

Really?  How we came to be defines what we are.   We are the product of evolution.

[datc]

1. How do you know that the method to get an afterlife is  what you have outlined here on this forum?

2. How do you know there aren't other criteria to get an afterlife other than your method?

"My" method is necessary but not sufficient, because as I pointed out earlier, for most people eternal life in their present spiritual state would naturally be miserable. They would ask to die. Their afterlife will naturally fail to be eternal. They might even hate others and try to harm them in paradise!

Thus, it is essential, for example, to learn at least not to hate others and not to commit violent crimes.

Even for a peaceful individual, the kingdom of God within him is highly personal. My ideal personality (in which I approve of everything I do, and fail to do nothing of which I approve in myself) will be very different from your own best self.

As C.S. Lewis points out: "Your soul has the curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions."

Let me give you a distinctively Christian understanding of this particular point. Please don't scream at me; this is an addendum; it's not essential and can be for the sake of argument ignored.

Human souls are naturally imperishable. It is simply not within God's power to let your immortal soul just disappear. As a result, you have no choice but to come to enjoy your eternal life (in the process making it indeed eternal). Failure is not an option. Your soul cannot die like your body; as a result, you must either live spiritually eternally or die spiritually. But spiritual death is indeed an unmitigated horror.

Now I happen to think that the Christian hell exists but in actual fact is empty; this is because no one upon being exposed to hell can fail to turn around. Hell is not a place a punishment but a disincentive that is so potent that it always works to deter self-destructionism of any kind. In short, you are forced to be happy. Or rather, you are forced by the threat of hell to become fit for or in Kant's words, "worthy of" true happiness.

There are no half-measures. There is not eternal existence that is boring or joyless or sort of barely satisfying. It's "you are fully in or fully out." You are either having a genuinely unambiguous marvelous time, or you are burning in hell. Again, there is no one actually in hell, because hell is a perfect deterrent.

It is pointless and a waste of time to complain or revolt about these spiritual laws, anymore that it is sensible to complain about laws of physics.

How do you know there aren't other afterlives in addition to the one you believe exists, that are as good or better than yours, and your method will not let you have one of those?

The question does not apply, because I have not specified any particular afterlife, other than the aspect of our humanity perpetually to improve. To the extent that human nature is preserved after death, there is improvement in heaven, and it presumably starts out from the spiritual state of the newly ascended.

4. How do you know that the way to be left out of an afterlife is to be credulous and gullible, and to fall for idiotic arguments like Pascal's Wager?

I have been arguing that it is precisely heeding Pascal's wager that is most prudent and is not at all credulous and gullible. An agnostic who chooses atheism may have credulously and gullibly listened to atheists like you.

[Silver]

It is pointless and a waste of time to complain or revolt about these spiritual laws.

Spiritual laws are not real laws any more than religion is real.  You make the statement as though there is any actual authority behind it, yet what is most apparent is that you are tenaciously clinging to a mythological concept merely for the comfort it provides rather than allowing rationality to make itself available.  

[datc]

"human glory", which is - as you yourself said - our god given right to rule over everything else. Which, in my book, is quite the same as white supremacism as far as being uninformed is concerned.

I nowhere argued that this right is God-given; it is enough to notice that humans are the sort of creatures who naturally and cleverly use everything around them for their own ends. This impulse to use his environment to build civilizations is inherent in a man and stops only with his physical death.

Also, excuse me for being a speciesist and for caring for humans more than for mosquitoes and viruses. You won't get any politically correct stuff here.

[abaris]

Also, excuse me for being a speciesist and for caring for humans more than for mosquitoes and viruses. You won't get any politically correct stuff here.

I would settle for informed instead of willfully ignorant.

[Simon Moon]

"My" method is necessary but not sufficient, because as I pointed out earlier, for most people eternal life in their present spiritual state would naturally be miserable. They would ask to die. Their afterlife will naturally fail to be eternal. They might even hate others and try to harm them in paradise!

Thus, it is essential, for example, to learn at least not to hate others and not to commit violent crimes.

Even for a peaceful individual, the kingdom of God within him is highly personal. My ideal personality (in which I approve of everything I do, and fail to do nothing of which I approve in myself) will be very different from your own best self.

As C.S. Lewis points out: "Your soul has the curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions."

Let me give you a distinctively Christian understanding of this particular point. Please don't scream at me; this is an addendum; it's not essential and can be for the sake of argument ignored.

Human souls are naturally imperishable. It is simply not within God's power to let your immortal soul just disappear. As a result, you have no choice but to come to enjoy your eternal life (in the process making it indeed eternal). Failure is not an option. Your soul cannot die like your body; as a result, you must either live spiritually eternally or die spiritually. But spiritual death is indeed an unmitigated horror.

Now I happen to think that the Christian hell exists but in actual fact is empty; this is because no one upon being exposed to hell can fail to turn around. Hell is not a place a punishment but a disincentive that is so potent that it always works to deter self-destructionism of any kind. In short, you are forced to be happy. Or rather, you are forced by the threat of hell to become fit for or in Kant's words, "worthy of" true happiness.

There are no half-measures. There is not eternal existence that is boring or joyless or sort of barely satisfying. It's "you are fully in or fully out." You are either having a genuinely unambiguous marvelous time, or you are burning in hell. Again, there is no one actually in hell, because hell is a perfect deterrent.

It is pointless and a waste of time to complain or revolt about these spiritual laws, anymore that it is sensible to complain about laws of physics.

All I read here is a load of unsupported claims by you (and CS Lewis). Why should I believe any of them unless you are able to support them with evidence and valid/sound logic?

I have been arguing that it is precisely heeding Pascal's wager that is most prudent and is not at all credulous and gullible. An agnostic who chooses atheism may have credulously and gullibly listened to atheists like you.

I know what you've been arguing, you're just doing a bad job. 

How is disbelieving unsupported assertions being gullible?

In fact, the very definition of gullibility is to believe unsupported assertions.

[datc]

There's no dodging this question. And [how we came to be] is highly relevant for what and who we are.

Suppose I say: human beings are bipedal smooth-skinned rational animals. Or: human beings cannot produce Vitamin C and must get it from food. I have just described a very small aspect of what man is without taking any position on how he came to be.

Statements like the two above can be multiplied innumerably.

To be sure, the problem of our origins can be interesting and fruitful to study in its own right. But it is hardly the subject of the original post.

[abaris]

To be sure, the problem of our origins can be interesting and fruitful to study in its own right. But it is hardly the subject of the original post.

No, it makes or breaks the entire discussion. There's no supposing of how we came to be, since this question has been answered by science. And there's a reason why I talk about animals and recent cognition experiments, since their results debunk your lofty stance of humans being in any way unique when it comes to feelings, morals and problem solving. We are evolved, that's all, but what made us is present in other species as well.

As long as you don't inform yourself about scientific discoveries and only take your belief of humans being special as guidance, your arguments are null and void.

[datc]

No, it makes or breaks the entire discussion.

Ah, a fanatic. Well, aye-aye, cap'n, let's start the insanity. Without me, of course.